Up Against the Wall
by reihteah
Summary: But she wasn't fine. And she wasn't safe. / ichihime


Everyone was ecstatic for the fact that Inoue Orihime was back home safe... safe from Hueco Mundo, safe from Grimmjow, safe from Ulquiorra, and safe from Aizen. Safe from it all.

Life could—and would—continue back to it's fairly normal routine and soon everyone that knew it happened would slowly push her kidnapping to the back of their minds.

But she wasn't fine. And she wasn't safe.

The torment and abuse that she suffered wouldn't even disappear if she were somehow able to live out her desired five lifetimes. She knew that it would always remain in the back of her head, always there as a reminder.

How could she forget it?

* * *

"Ku-Kurosaki-kun!" The naïve girl spluttered out breathlessly, staring in awe at the young substitute. "Why are you here?! I... I mean, why am I here? Hehehe." She rubbed her head and continued to laugh awkwardly, noticing that they were about ten yards from the Kurosaki's house. Orihime wondered as to why her longtime crush was outside so late, but she didn't have room to talk.

The spiky haired boy took a moment to survey the surrounding area, checking for any sort of danger. He couldn't see anything that was wrong or even sense unwelcomed reiastu so he averted his eyes back on his classmate. He looked at her intensely to make sure she was alright. Ichigo noticed how she wasn't in the attire to be walking so naively throughout the streets—her long legs were shown in that tight sweater dress, that also flaunted off all her curves. The thin scarf and light jacket that she was wearing wouldn't do her anything in this cold weather—the only thing that her appearance would do for her is attracting all the wrong people.

His nostrils flared with fury as he became lost in his thoughts, picturing the wrong person getting a hold of her. He vowed to himself that he wouldn't ever let anyone take her away again after what had just happened in Hueco Mundo and seeing her just carelessly displaying herself made him so... _angry_.

"Inoue, why are you walking so late at night?" Ichigo inquired in a monotone, not letting any of his emotions out. "And by yourself?"

_I wonder if he questions why I walked to his house,_ Orihime worriedly thought. _Oh, how humiliating! _"Oh, just getting some fresh air, you know!" _I can't just tell him that I was scared of being alone in my apartment and I wanted to see him... You're such a fool, Orihime!_ She mentally scolded herself.

"Fresh air? At this time? It's way past your bed time," he noted, looking over the girl again. He watched her laugh nervously again and itch her head, a loss at words. "Here, let me walk you back."

The burnt orange haired girl immediately found words to verbalize. "Oh, no-nono, no!" She flailed her hands back and forth and shook her head vigorously. "I couldn't bother Kurosaki-kun with such a hassle! How selfish would I be?!" After spazzing for another moment or so, Inoue suddenly got very serious and bowed her head. She mumbled out, "I'm very sorry. Have a good night, Kurosaki-kun."

"Oi, wait," Ichigo reached out his hand and put it on her right shoulder while she still bent down. Orihime jumped at the sudden contact and took a few steps back after immediately brushing him off, the contact of the opposite sex scared her. He furrowed his eyebrows at her while he was secretly hurt.

Orihime's striking look of fear was suddenly covered in a mask of a happy facade. "Welp! I'm off, goodnight Kurosaki-kun!" She started running away from him, a huge, fake grin plastered on her face. "Sweet dreams!"

_What just happened? _Ichigo Kurosaki thought as he watched her run off, his heart beating fast with uneasiness.

* * *

"Oh, what an idiot I am!" Orihime huffed, finally a few blocks away from the Kurosaki residence. Dragging her feet as she walked through the dark streets, she felt so much more drained than before. "Who cares if I was feeling lonely earlier? I feel mortified now on top of it and that's so much worse! Kurosaki-kun probably thinks I'm such an idiot!"

"Huh, what's that? You're lonely?" a deep voice called out behind her, making Orihime freeze in her tracks with fright.

The young woman swallowed hard and held her breath after realizing how unfriendly this voice sounded. She felt her right shoulder being grabbed in the same position that Ichigo grabbed it and it had somehow made her hopeful, despite the contact. "Kurosak—" Orihime turned in a hurry to face not Ichigo, but two older men with sake lacing their bad breaths.

"We would love to be your company for the night, pretty girl-chan," the other one chuckled in a mocking tone.

"No, no thank you," she meekly responded, trying to get out of the first one's grasps. "Please let me go. Please. I just want to go back home to Onii-chan..." Orihime pleaded in a desperate tone as her eyes began to tear up from a painful memory that was engraved in her mind.

"_Onii-chan!" A defeated Orihime cried out for her dead brother from off the floor. Her naked body curled up into a tight ball, trying to hide her private parts as she sobbed into her hands. "Onii-chan, onii-chan, onii-chan! Aaaa, wh-where are you, o-onii-chan?! H-H-Help me..."_

_She was alone in the dark room, but the remnants of two Espada lingered on her corrupted body._

"What's wrong with 'er? Did ya push her down to the ground er something?!"

"No, she fell down on her own!"

Orihime was sobbing as she crouched on her knees and covered her ears and closed her eyes, trying to block out the painful memories and the painful present. Suddenly she was forced off balance and fell down onto the pavement, scratching her cheek. She snapped out of it and looked up with sad, watery, gray orbs when she realized they were kicking her. Pain struck her stomach over and over again as they repeated their attacks.

"Please stop! Please!" She begged out through sobs.

_What are you doing, Orihime-san?! Call us out! _

_Fool! Call me out so I can kill these bastards!_

_Orihime-san!_

Her shun shun rikka's desperate pleas made her excruciating head ache even worse when it normally would make her motivated. She was so destroyed mentally, emotionally, and physically that she just couldn't care anymore. A faint picture of Kurosaki-kun appeared in her head before she was unconscious.

"Hey, hey, wait, she's not moving now."

"Lookawhat chu did!"

"I just wanted her to be easy to take!"

"Well, now she's not even moving."

"Isn't that good? Let's pick her up now."

"..._Inoue_!"

* * *

The red-headed girl finally jerked awake, almost jumping out of the unfamiliar bed. Her heart was racing with fear as she frantically looked around from side to side in a slightly dark room. Panicking, Orihime threw off the blankets off her warm body to see that she was in baggy pajamas that didn't belong to her.

"Wh-Where am I...?" She mumbled aloud to herself as she finally registered where she was after looking back up in her surroundings to see a neat and basic room that she would recognize even with poor lighting. _Kurosaki-kun's room..._

Slowly and quietly, the frightened girl made Kurosaki Ichigo's bed with delicate fingers and red cheeks. As soon as the comforter looked like it was a perfectly made hotel's bed, she nodded her head with approval. Orihime wondered what time it was and as she scanned the room for his alarm clock, she noticed it was four o'clock in the morning. She gasped and started to tip-toe towards the door.

"Aaahg!" A masculine's voice cried out suddenly as Orihime tripped over a body on the floor. Before she made contact with the hard floor, she prepared herself for the impact—she waited to feel the sharp pain of the wood... but it never came. Instead, she felt strong arms grab her and a warm body pull her close.

Orihime squinted her eyes to realize that she was on top of her long term love and she would have thought that those insistent butterflies would fly in her stomach and make her feel embarrassed in warm way. However, this position disgusted her and she pictured the Fourth Espada straddling her body like this.

"No!" She cried out, shoved Ichigo to the side, and then rolled over to the side and curled up into a ball, the tears threatening her once again.

"Inoue? Are you okay? I'm sorry, I was just trying to catch you," The confused boy pleaded innocently as he got up to turn on the dim lamp. Once the room was better lit, he saw her in a fetal position and her hands covering her ears. "Inoue?"

"I'm sorry, Kurosaki-kun," she mumbled as she covered her face in her knees. "I was just disorientated, I didn't mean to o-offend you... I just don't know what's going on..."

Ichigo rubbed his head awkwardly. "Oh, yeah. A few hours ago when you tried to walk home... Some creeps tried messing with you. You're damn lucky that I followed you." He scolded in a harsh manner. "You had passed out or something. I figured it'd be easier for you to just stay here with someone instead of going back to an unoccupied house."

Orihime felt her cheeks get hotter while hearing the genuine concern in his voice. _Stop...he would have done the same for anyone else... _

"Oh!" He suddenly got very flustered, which made Orihime very curious and she peeked her head up from hiding. "And, and... I was sleeping on the floor because you kept saying in your sleep that you weren't safe and to not leave you. So I just grabbed some blankets and camped out on the ground by the bed. Sorry."

"H-H-How embarrassing!" The young woman shrieked out, feeling terrible to be such a nuisance.

Ichigo just shrugged and changed the topic. "I don't like you going off on your own in the night."

"I don't mean to upset Kurosaki-kun..."

"No, it's not that. It's just..." His voice trailed off in thought.

Orihime looked down in dismay. "I made you worry and carry me back to your house and made you sleep on the floor. I'm such a ditz, aren't I?!" She tried to fake laugh, hoping to fool him.

His stern look just stared through her pitiful facade. "Are you okay, Inoue?"

"O-Of course, why... why wouldn't I be?! I'm very strong and I would have taken care of those creeps if I ate more green vegetables that day! Ho, ho.. Next time they'll get a piece of my copper fist—"

"Stop."

Orihime's eyes widened at Ichigo's serious tone while she shut her mouth. The moonlight that came in from the window gleamed off her pale face and revealed her gray orbs that were threatening tears.

"Are you okay?" He repeated. She meekly nodded while her eyes filled with salty tears. "Are you _okay?_" He repeated again, sterner yet. Orihime attempted to nod, but her head hung down in defeat as her tears started to pour down onto her lap. She immediately brushed them and breathed heavily, struggling for words to use as an excuse.

It was too sudden what had happened next. He attempted to pull the struggling girl into his arms for a comforting hug, but she slapped his arms away as a reaction. Confused at the kind girl's strange response, he hung his hands in the air as if he was trying to reach her, but it was impossible to touch her.

"I am fine." Ichigo Kurosaki has never heard Orihime's voice so cold and her eyes so cruel.

The shock he was in by her cold antics left him paralyzed on the floor—his arms still frozen in the air—and he couldn't stop her from quietly leaving his bedroom.

Ichigo was sure of it now. He had his suspicions, but this just confirmed them.

Orihime was raped in Hueco Mundo.


End file.
